Startup Syntax: Innovation v. Invention
Innovation fuels startups. Rethinking existing solutions to meet market demands drives growth and impact. Focus on real problems that people really face.
Innovation
Founders often obsess over finding something "new"—a new technology, a new market, a never-before-seen idea. But the truth is, some billion-dollar companies weren't born from invention. They came from innovation: rethinking something familiar and doing it better, faster, cheaper, or for a different customer.
Airbnb didn't invent travel. Stripe didn't invent payments. Even Tesla didn't invent electric cars. What they did was reframe the opportunity, rethink the distribution or redesign the experience (i.e., innovate).
The danger with chasing novelty is that it may easily lead into a market that doesn't exist, or worse, one that doesn’t need or even want to exist. Instead of asking "What hasn't been done?" or getting infected with analysis paralysis, please consider:
What's broken?
What's inconvenient?
What’s being ignored?
What's outdated?
Market
If you take something people already pay for or are asking for—particularly a significant population (business-to-consumer) or companies (business-to-business), not merely a small group of friends and family—and then innovate around a massive market demand, not a personal obsession or passing trend, you may not need to reinvent the wheel; you may simply need to get it rolling in a new direction.
This is EVFM’s Master Thesis 02: Prefer Innovation Over Invention. It's not about the tech—it's about the insight. When you innovate around real problems, you unlock the opportunity for accelerated traction, adoption and compounding value of existing pent up market forces. Invention may seem sexy, but innovation may win the VC.
Perhaps worry less about inventing something "new" and more about innovating something the market demands and will find useful.
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